Posted
by
BeauHDon Thursday April 20, 2017 @08:25PM
from the annual-grandstanding-effort dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Apple released its Environmental Responsibility Report Wednesday, an annual grandstanding effort that the company uses to position itself as a progressive, environmentally friendly company. Behind the scenes, though, the company undermines attempts to prolong the lifespan of its products. Apple's new moonshot plan is to make iPhones and computers entirely out of recycled materials by putting pressure on the recycling industry to innovate. But documents obtained by Motherboard using Freedom of Information requests show that Apple's current practices prevent recyclers from doing the most environmentally friendly thing they could do: Salvage phones and computers from the scrap heap. Apple rejects current industry best practices by forcing the recyclers it works with to shred iPhones and MacBooks so they cannot be repaired or reused -- instead, they are turned into tiny shards of metal and glass. "Materials are manually and mechanically disassembled and shredded into commodity-sized fractions of metals, plastics, and glass," John Yeider, Apple's recycling program manager, wrote under a heading called "Takeback Program Report" in a 2013 report to Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. "All hard drives are shredded in confetti-sized pieces. The pieces are then sorted into commodities grade materials. After sorting, the materials are sold and used for production stock in new products. No reuse. No parts harvesting. No resale."

This is, has been, and continues to be a problem. It's easy to blame Apple but it's an industry wide issue. It's so much more profitable to sell a new product than to repair and sell a used one. Also the industry's business model is to dump the old and get the new latest product. This model will not last long if the market is full of old products. So it's not surprising that they rather destroy than repair and sell.The solution lies on the user. At some point we have to take blame on how the industry functions. Apple would not be the mammoth it is if we did not buy and support their business model.What Apple is doing is to make a show of their recycling effort so that most people don't feel bad about getting a new Apple product but they can still continue to sell and make the most profits. Make no mistake profits will win over recycling.To fix this, we could pressure the company to reform their ways by buying the competition's products that follow more sustainable practices. Not likely since they are so good at selling and there probably isn't a direct replacement. Or we can pressure our government representatives to do something about it. A good candidate solution since we have slowly increased what companies must do to protect the environment. We are not at the best point but we are getting there. We need to add pressure to our reps to continue. What they've done is not enough.The best thing we can do is to resist the pressure to upgrade our gadgets. No we don't need to upgrade every year and no we don't need the new shiny gadget that will be put in the dump in a few months. The fix starts with us.

Most users of Apple products that I know personally do not buy each new model. And the one that I know does, always sells his old one used. In fact, I can't think of anyone who would just give a working device to Apple when buying a new one. The resale value of Apple hardware almost always makes the bother of finding a buyer worth it.

Why blame Apple when you can blame Apple customers who feel they need a new model every year?

Your meme is pretty lame. I still see a lot of iPhone 5's in use, and even some 4's. On the other hand, I know several Android phone users who get new phones whenever they read what the hot new model is.

There was a report from somewhere last year that when the new iphone models are announced that the number of accidentally broken or lost phones increased. It was surmised that perhaps this occured subconsciously so that there would be an excuse to get a new one. Possibly this applies to Android?http://brobible.com/life/artic... [brobible.com]

There was a report from somewhere last year that when the new iphone models are announced that the number of accidentally broken or lost phones increased. It was surmised that perhaps this occured subconsciously so that there would be an excuse to get a new one. Possibly this applies to Android?
http://brobible.com/life/artic... [brobible.com]

On the other hand, I know several iPhone users who wait in line for hours on end in front of an Apple store for a new iPhone. I also see a lot of old Android phones, old enough to the point they don't get security updates old. So, what's your point?

My point is that the original assertion that Apple Customers who want a new phone every year are to blame for phone recycling is simply incorrect.

Just to put your solution into real world perspective, where real people live.

Recently a certain auto maker was the front page occupant of many newspapers for a huge diesel scandal (I bet you can't guess who!)You know something? I haven't seen so many goddamned Golfs and Jettas on the road since

Just to put your solution into real world perspective, where real people live.

Recently a certain auto maker was the front page occupant of many newspapers for a huge diesel scandal (I bet you can't guess who!)
You know something? I haven't seen so many goddamned Golfs and Jettas on the road since

The fuck is a coalroller? Why the hell treat me as such for stating an observation of mine?

Coalrolling is an activity performed by some deisel vehicle owners, who alter their (usually trucks) to put out large amounts of smoke when they see people in cars like the Prius, which gets good gas mileage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Apparently this puts the roller in a superior intellectual place.

I have no idea if you are a coal roller or not - I certainly hope not. But the concept of people going out of there way to use vehicles that put out more pollutants than is legal, just reminded me of

The best thing we can do is to resist the pressure to upgrade our gadgets. No we don't need to upgrade every year and no we don't need the new shiny gadget that will be put in the dump in a few months. The fix starts with us.

I hate to say it, but I think we've already lost this battle.

I run a Galaxy Note 3, and have done so since about its release date back in Sept 2013. For me, it's flawless - 4 monster CPUs, a great OLED screen, thermometer, barometer, hygrometer, great camera (with 4k video), LTE/MiMo

The best thing we can do is to resist the pressure to upgrade our gadgets. No we don't need to upgrade every year and no we don't need the new shiny gadget that will be put in the dump in a few months. The fix starts with us.

I hate to say it, but I think we've already lost this battle.

I run a Galaxy Note 3, and have done so since about its release date back in Sept 2013. For me, it's flawless - 4 monster CPUs, a great OLED screen, thermometer, barometer, hygrometer, great camera (with 4k video), LTE/MiMo, running CM13 (Android 6.0.1). I have no reason or desire to upgrade. None. I'll still be using this phone for 3 or 4 more years unless I break or lose it.

Here's the trick: I'm on my third replacement battery.

This behavior costs the incumbent manufacturers money, and they have put a stop to it by gluing batteries into devices. They all do it now. It's disgusting. And we allow it. And don't be surprised if they start chipping and authenticating the batteries in the future.

This is the battleground, and very few people seem to understand it. Gluing batteries into phones encourages users to replace them at least every two years (as they typically start just long enough to last a day, and after two years, can't do that anymore). Replacement is mandatory, for many users, after 3. Forget about 5, 6, or 10 years.

The practice should be illegal as it is a huge waste of resources, recycling or not.

If Samsung would stop overcharging their batteries, they'd last longer. That's a fact.

My iPad 2 at 5 years old and HEAVY use daily, still has nearly 100% of the battery life it did brand new, nor has the charge time changed in any noticeable way.

My iPhone 4s (although I don't use it anymore), went into the drawer with no appreciable battery life or charge time difference from new.

My current iPhone 6 Plus, going on 3 years now (I think), still lasts about 4 days of general use, and again, I haven't noticed a

Not a direct replacement for an Apple product?You're serious?Only an Apple fanatic could think something like that, given that there are indeed direct replacements for every Apple product.

Name another product that can run OS X. The only other choices are Windows, which, Windows, or Linux, which isn't nearly as user-friendly. I have friends who use both of those systems - no thank you! Only OS X gives you a *nix system that is not only very stable and configurable, but incredibly easy to use. Android is a decent imitation of iOS, looks a lot like it, but the iPhone still kills it. I mean, why do you think Apple has fanatical users?

Hate on Apple all you want. I hate them, too. Always have. But no one can touch their products, even as they try to imitate them. That's just a fact. Whether they'll be able to keep this up with Jobs gone remains to be seen, but I am not about to start using Windows.

That is debatable. Having used Linux for around 13 years, and OS X for about 4, I personally find Linux easier to use. The number of times I've struggled to make something work in OS X, even something as simple as turn off mouse scroll wheel acceleration and make the mouse movement less jumpy.

OS X is probably easy to use if you're happy with the default configuration and all your applications can be installed via drag and drop, but the moment you start trying to do something else, or want a different music player to iTunes, then that user friendliness just seems to dwindle away. I still don't know how to make my mouse feel right, or stop many applications from looking horrible on a retina display. I find aptitude much easier than the mix of Mac Ports and manual installation / updating.

Frankly, if I didn't need access to Microsoft products for collaboration purposes and hadn't been given a MBP by my work, then I'd happily use Linux full time (btw no, I'm not an application developer or full time programmer, just a university researcher).

I still don't know how to make my mouse feel right, or stop many applications from looking horrible on a retina display.

I want to know what you use on Linux which makes dealing with resolutions and mice easier than a couple of clicks in OS X. If we accept your mouse thing as a realty, I could even follow along with you; however, saying you have applications which don't look ok on a Retina display is something which I simply cannot fathom.

You can get incredibly fine control over your mouse on Linux with xinput. Yes, you have to use the command line, and it takes a little experimentation, but it's all there for you to customise. To turn off mouse acceleration on OS X you need to open up a terminal and typedefaults write.GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1Then log out and back in, and frankly it still feels off. There is no way at all, short of installing 3rd party software, of turning off mouse wheel acceleration.

Since I have to use Apple because of software that only they have, I gotta say that the integration of the iPhone and MacOS is pretty sweet. It doesn't take a fanboi to appreciate seamless integration.

I also use Android, Linux and Windows. No solutions on those that are as seamless.

Well, how about imagine this scenario. Let's say Apple's recyclers are allowed to recycle components. NAND flash chips from all sorts of devices are collected - how long before some very embarrassing, sensitive, or even damaging information thought deleted from someone's phone is recovered from one of those chips?

While I am no fan of Apple nor their business practices, their current recycling method represents the best they can do while taking the precautions they need to take to ensure safety. They can'

iPad 4 (nearly 5 years old) still runs current iOS and is quite usable.

The ARM stuff just got so much faster early on.

The ecosystem/cloud/ubiquitous computing model is pretty good in this respect, as no-one can afford to bring out an update that renders all the other gadgets obsolete overnight, well, not too often anyway.

The iPad 1 was obsolete pretty much the day it launched - they launched it extremely close to the iPhone 4, but they gave the iPhone 4 twice the amount of RAM, meaning that the flagship brand new Apple tablet already couldn't run all the apps available...

You are apparently unaware of the Apple Refurbished page. Devices that can be refurbished and resold are sold. Devices that cannot be refurbished economically are recycled. They currently list products in every major category (Mac, Macbook, iPad, iPhone, iPod, AppleWatch, AppleTV) on their refurbished page https://www.apple.com/shop/bro... [apple.com]

Not every device can or should be repaired. I've returned devices where the exact fault couldn't be determined. It is very much pro consumer to shred that machine instea

This doesn't change anything. The people who buy into Apple mindshare will continue to buy Apple, and the rest of us will continue to repurpose old hardware for new roles and pretty much ignore the shiny trendy things. And there will be enough Apple fans for Apple to continue to make boatloads of money. And many of those fans will be all hyped up to save the earth and recycle everything and battle global warming, while not even recognizing the irony of throwing away an $800 phone every 18 months.

Apple doesn't do anything to prevent anyone from reselling or giving away an iPhone or Mac--there is a thriving reseller market for both. Macs hold their value much better than PCs do, for example; specifically because they last longer. Apple itself has a refurbishment program that resells pre-owned Macs & iPhones.

This is just about what happens when Apple sends some old device to an authorized recycler. Should Apple allow that recycler to piece out individual parts and sell them on a gray market? possibly selling hard drives with customer data still on them? Or should Apple insist that they shred the devices and recycle them.

Reasonable people could disagree about which strategy is more responsible--but in the grand scheme of things to get pissed about, this is pretty lame. Do you have any idea how many electronic devices don't get recycled at all? Who recycles your old cable box? Who recycles your shoes?

It's increasingly difficult to tell the difference between Slashdot and Breitbart--the same sort of manufactured outrage exist on both.

The last three of my MBPs are all still in use with other members of my extended family. The oldest is now over six years old but, apart from the mechanical hard disk, is still reasonably performant. It plays Minecraft just fine.

I'm on my third iPad. Both of the previous two are in use by my parents.

People seem much happier to accept hand-me-down Apple gear than PCs. That's probably a function of price of new Macs and perceived desirability. Making a computer attractive for second hand buyers is probably th

that I didn't replace in 2 years when the hardware got flaky/crashy. The 5 overheats. A lot. I'm an Android guy because for $250 bucks I can buy a nice phone. But my kid's stuck on Apple because of iMessage (which is less a messaging app and more a sort of mini social network). Anyway, ain't nobody recycling the iPhone 5.

Apple doesn't force anybody to do anything here. People hired by Apple are expected to do what Apple hired them to do. Apple refurbs and resells tons of devices. what it can't it recycles. Every junkyard in the world crushes tons of cars with usable parts. there simply comes a point when they are not worth the work required to reclaim them.

As much as people are upset about this there is a very logical solution to this, get in the recycling business. I imagine that a lot of people out there can't just get in the recycling business themselves but they have the choice on how they recycle their aged and/or broken electronics. You don't have to send your old MacBook to Apple, find a recycler that will not simply shred it into confetti. A question comes to mind, how did we get ourselves in this interesting situation?

What parts in an iPad 2 are worth reclaiming? Nobody wants a tablet with iPad 2 vintage components in it. Also, getting them out of the device undamaged would probably be less efficient than shredding it and sorting the materials afterwards.

If that were true then Apple would not feel any motivation to specify that they be destroyed. If Apple did not see them as potentially valuable to competitors then they'd do nothing since it would avoid any friction from potential recycling contractors and also avoid any possibility of bad press if this contractual obligation got out. My guess is that there were many people at Apple that did this math but perhaps did not anticipate all the fact

So let me get this straight, people turn stuff in to apple and and sends them to a recycler to have them recycled to for some contract price. Why in gods name would apple let them profiteer by reselling them instead? That would be nuts.

I get where Apple is coming from. If the entire point is to prevent the reselling of used parts for profit, thus creating fraud among a market where truly validated refurbished parts exist, then the solution is to just mark them. Mark them with a logo (embossed, laser etched, etc) so that the end consumer knows willingly that the case is not new and not refurbished, rather reused as-is in current condition. I promise, there would be a market for those parts in 3rd world

Anyone who thinks Apple cares about recycling is completely blind to what is really happening behind the scenes.

Not only Apple does not recycle crap, they also are actively spending money via lobbying to kill stuff like the right to repair bill which would help independent repair shops to fix iPhones, Macs and whatnot and prolong their lives.The "official repair" Apple does usually ammounts to throwing away easily repairable units to force costumers to buy refurbished models or newer ones, and they are constantly pushing towards strategies to block independent repair efforts with stuff like error 53 and the more recent software blocking of fingerprint reader replacement on the iPhone 7.

With crap like eliminating "legacy ports" like the headphone jack due to them being "corageous", they've effectively pushed more bluetooth headsets and more dongles into the market which has even more toxic and non-recyclable materials that will be purchased in greater number and will be replaced or lost in a more constant rate, instead of regular headphones that requires less electronic parts.

But the company couldn't care less as long as they are making truckloads of money, which is something most corporations do anyways. It's just damn insulting that they keep trying to push this bullshit and that parts of the press swallow it whole. F*cking predatory company that keeps feeding on public misinformation.

It's known that there are no easy ways of disassembling and reusing old phones component parts to make new ones because it just costs too much more to recover whatever materials were used, but they have no qualms on feeding on regular costumers lack of knowledge on this to paint themselves as a good company that is trying to do "something" about it. Protip for those who don't know about this: it'll result in nothing, and they already know it. It's a token effort. There are no good ways of harvesting raw materials for eWaste to make new components in a financially viable manner, because if there was everyone would be doing it.

Currently, anyone that is well informed or an active part of the problem know full well that the best way of generating less waste is to use electronics for as long as possible. If smartphone companies really wanted to generate less electronic waste, they'd change release schedules and development time to force consumers to keep their damn phones for a longer period of time, plus do as much as possible to keep older units working instead of making them useless after a certain ammount of OS updates. Another way is to make the architecture more open and standardized so that electronics can be used in multiple ways - like old desktops and laptops that you can install some Linux distro and use as an HTPC or something. Of course, Apple stuff is the harderst type of hardware to do something like that.

The only thing Apple really has on their favor is that even older laptops and desktops retain some value in the used market, and some of it's users keeps their stuff even years after they purchased it. But make no mistake. If Apple could find a way to avoid that without a huge fanbase backlash, they would.

So let me get this straight... we have tens of thousands of these devices going into the trash and it's the industry's fault, for making a shinier new phone available each year, instead of a "more responsible" five year or ten year delay?

Not a word for the besotted user who donates their old phone to a relative, or a friend, or sells it, or just plain gives it away, in order to get the shinier one with the force-touch or the better battery or the slightly different size?

Apple has a recycling and reuse link on their website. Some countries directed to Brightstar who runs some programs. Functional working devices get a higher price at appropriate market rates. Compare to Gazelle or others. The working devices are typically resold for customer reuse in as is condition. Apple also refurbs and resells products e.g. Certified pre-owned(CPO). Scrap from damaged non functioning devices appears to be the scope of not reusing. Guessing Apple wants to ensure no bad parts circulating

I'm sorry; you're just taking this news too reasonably. Get with the program here: Apple is sending hired goons to our houses to literally grab our old phones out of our hands and grind them into a fine spicy powder, forcing us to go out and buy them again. Their 100% recyclable materials and 100% renewable energy stance is mere posturing and they are no better than Halliburton, Shell Oil, and Blackwater. Boo, hiss, et cetera.

I remember buying wireless cards from a seller on ebay (10-15 years ago). Those were Netgear cards (PCMCIA mostly) and they would work most of the time but fail regularly (the longer the more often...).

Turns out that the guy had sources in Asia who literally pulled these out of trash-bins at some recycler.

Netgear refused to honor any kind of warranty or responsibility for those cards.

I believe, the best way to reduce waste is to carefully consider if you actually need the product in question - and start fro

The summary says this specifically with respect to hard drives, which actually makes some sense, especially in the age of SSDs.

I don't know how many articles I've read here on the subject of recycling computers and the number of commenters who have said the only way to do it is to take the platters out and drive a nail through them and such.

Would you not expect Apple to do the same?

SSDs are even trickier because you can't do something like the secure wipe procedures where you overwrite with 1s and then 0s r

Posting anon as I'm a certified Apple repair technician. But I hate them. So much.

The design choices they continue to make with each generation are getting progressively more anti-consumer for no good reason. Glued-in batteries. Keyboards that are part of the chassis and require full disassembly of the entire laptop plus $150 for the part. When keyboards and batteries are some of the most commonly-replaced items in the laptop. Soldered in memory, which is unnecessary... no Apple laptop is thinner than a SOD

The fact is, Apple is built on propoganda. Their total investment of an iPhone after it arrives in the store is only usd50.

The hardware is always 2 generations behind modern and the softwate is constricted to a seamless user interaction with software administrative privileges withheld from the owner or lessee.

Other non Apple manufacturers have tried this, like Samsung and LG claiming to own all data and the hardware itself, and they just look foolish when the software is 3rd party.

The original propoganda is that these are phones tgat can be searched under shitty "transmitting utility" codes that bring Unites States out of Washington DC. These are computers used less for communicating, a complete disrespect of concept even by Amateur Radio Relay League.standards.

I installed Windows 10, Kodi and NextPVR on a 2006 Acer Aspire Idea 500 that came with a 32bit 1.83Ghz Intel Core Duo, not long ago.

Runs perfectly well - boots up in about 30-45 seconds from the HDD. No problems with multiple tabs in Edge, even handles the video decoding for live TV from the built-in tuner (with the drivers installed automatically).

Meanwhile my sister's struggling to open Finder on her 2015 MacBook Air (4GB RAM) because she has two windows open in Chrome and a dozen PDFs in preview.

Chrome is well-known to be the hog-of-all-resources.

I have 4 GB of RAM in the 2012 MacBook Pro, and, using Safari, I could have more than that open without any performance issues.

It's not as bad as you would think. She has other computers she uses - a netbook, a 13 inch laptop and a 17 inch laptop, but the Mac Mini isn't bad for running Office 2010 or Chrome as long as an Adblock is installed.

I didn't think about it that way. But the difference is that Microsoft is still supporting Windows 7 with security patches and most new software is still supported for Windows 7. Very little software still supports 10.6.

Someone made a point that Apple's hardware was designed to become obsolete faster than necessary and that you could install Windows 7 or Linux on old PC hardware. The point is, you can also install Windows 7 or Linux on old Macintosh hardware.

Dude, you've completely missed the point - on average, Macs running Mac OS last in active use longer than most Wintel hardware. I've seen organisations run fleets of Macs w/o upgrading the hardware, that exceed Windows XP's software lifetimes. The 10.8 comment is almost irrelevant - you know the Mac App Store automatically provides OLD versions to OLD OS versions that can't run the latest version of an App, don't you ?

This article is nothing to do with planned obsolescence - its about devices that are broke

You have a bit of a point, but I disagree since I've got an old PowerPC eMac that still works with OSX (I failed to put FreeBSD on it).While it cannot run a recent version of OSX it does get updates for applications such as Safari and iTunes.

While re-using parts soldered onto PCB's is usually not practical, there certainly ARE components such as keyboards, displays, and drives that could well be re-used. But that's not even the real point - in may cases we're talking about fully functional devices that are being shredded. That's outright fucking criminal. Each device represents a huge investment of energy - therefore each device should be used as long as it works and someone wants it. Destroying fully functional equipment 'because business' or 'because shareholders' is stupid, shortsighted, and immoral.

Repair is likely to cost as much as buying a new one...

'Uneconomical to repair'? Most often these days, that's a pile of contrived bullshit. Manufacturers set it up that way. They do so partly by purposely making equipment difficult or impossible to service, and by charging scandalous prices for replacement parts. They also do it by having artificially low prices for their goods. If the REAL costs were factored in, (depletion of natural resources, environmental damage, climate change, the human costs of slave labour, etc.), goods would be much more expensive to purchase, as they should be. Repairability and longevity would then be not only cost-effective, but necessary, and the market for used equipment would be huge. Instead, we have companies fattening their bottom lines at the expense of future generations, in the service of a Ponzi scheme of an economy whose only guiding principle is "more growth is better, and unlimited growth is best". Which, incidentally, is the guiding principle of cancer, infections, and a whole host of other similar phenomena which rob human beings of life and dignity.

This isn't true. Reusing your 20-year-old refrigerator is way worse than recycling it, for example. Old computers draw a lot more power than newer computers that do more work. Etc. Sure, if the thing still works and is relatively new, keep using it, but the idea that we should keep using 20-year-old computers rather than recycling them isn't true.

Take a picture and zoom in. It's about the only way to read some coin-style battery numbers, cooking instructions on packages with small white text on orange backgrounds, etc. Sometimes you don't even need to take a picture - zooming in with the camera on your phone can be enough.

Seriously? Use a magnifying glass? Most people don't carry a magnifying glass around, and most magnifying glasses don't magnify as much as a smartphone camera can. Plus, if you take a picture, you don't have to trust your memory for a part number or whatever. Hence the expression "Take a picture - it will last longer."